Tertiary treatment

sanitation engineering

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Tertiary treatment of wastewater

(Left) During the filtering step, wastewater from secondary treatment, still containing suspended solids, pours from a trough and percolates through a filter bed made of porous media such as sand, gravel, and anthracite. The filtered water is then piped away for disposal. (Right) In the backwashing step, entrained solids are periodically flushed from the filter media by pumping filtered water back through the assembly. The backwash water, carrying suspended solids, is returned to the beginning of the wastewater treatment process.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Steps in the modern treatment of wastewater.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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sewage treatment

…phosphate levels must be reduced, tertiary treatment methods are used. Tertiary processes can remove more than 99 percent of all the impurities from sewage, producing an effluent of almost drinking-water quality. Tertiary treatment can be very expensive, often doubling the cost of secondary treatment. It is used only under special…